1717 and All That John Hamill

Circulation Paper – Not for Republication 1717 and all that John Hamill In November 1985 I was installed as Master of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge. That event being the start of the centenary year of the lodge my inaugural address was a review of what had, or had not, been achieved in the area of Masonic history with some suggestions of what could be done in the future. I was slightly taken to task by some of the more senior members of the lodge in that I had had the temerity, as the then youngest member of the lodge in actual age, to suggest that we should not simply accept the writings of those we regarded as the greats in Masonic research but should question their work and ourselves go back to the records they had surveyed to see if we came to the same conclusions. Thirty odd years later I stand by that view and firmly believe that we should periodically review what has gone before. In that, I share the views of Professors Prescott and Sommers in their original paper for the Cambridge Conference and in its present iteration that historical research progresses by challenging received wisdom, re-examining the previous evidence and re-assessing it in the light of new evidence. It will not be a surprise if I say I do not agree with most of the rest of what appears in both of their papers. From both versions of their paper my reading is that they do not believe that the Grand Lodge came into being in 1717 because there is no contemporary evidence for it in the way of press reports, minutes, notes or other documents and that the only “evidence” available to us was written down long after the event and therefore not trustworthy. So, let us look at what evidence we have. The only evidence for the event on 24 June 1717 is Anderson’s account in his 1738 edition of the Constitution. Professors Prescott and Sommers believe the story to be a fabrication by Anderson. They rather brush aside the suggestion that it would have been impossible for Anderson to have made such a fabrication because there were still people around in 1738 who would have been involved in the early years of Grand Lodge, not least Dr Desaguliers and George Payne who were still regularly attending, but come up with no convincing reason as to why Anderson should have invented the story. If the Grand Lodge had not existed before 1721 would not its “revival” in that year under the Duke of Montague have been a much more glorious start than that under an unknown figure such as Anthony Sayer in 1717? I have said on many occasions in the past that I am not surprised that there was no press report of the 1717 meeting at the Goose and Gridiron. No major figures were involved, Freemasonry was little known and had not drawn the attention of the press at that point. As 1 Circulation Paper – Not for Republication Professors Prescott and Sommers rightly state, the Installation of the high profile Duke of Montagu as Grand Master made Freemasonry a hot topic for journalists and writers. Having seen, over the years, what appeared in the press and in pamphlet form between 1721 and 1738 I am not surprised that there is no mention of 1717 and the Goose and Gridiron as most of the press reports were of meetings at which leading figures in society were made Masons or of the annual Grand Feast, or attempts to expose the secrets of Freemasonry and the pamphlets were either exposures or rejoinders, none giving any sort of context or recent historical background to the subject. Suggesting that the Grand Lodge was formed in 1721 and not in 1717 denies Anthony Sayer, George Payne and Dr Desaguliers their place in Masonic history as the first three Grand Masters despite the fact that they were honoured as such throughout their lifetimes. I find it difficult to understand why our two professors should dismiss the evidence of the list of Grand Masters, Deputy Grand Masters and Grand Wardens in the first Grand Lodge Minute Book as evidence because in their opinion it was compiled post 1731. I am not an expert on handwriting or inks but would be fascinated to know how their claim that “the handwriting and colour of ink shows that the list was inserted by Reid in the minute book sometime after 1731 and as possibly as late as 1734”. There is no doubt that it is in the hand of William Reid who was Secretary to the Grand Lodge 1727 – 1733 (the title did not become Grand Secretary until 1737) who was making an official list for the record. The fact that none of the original three is mentioned as a former Grand Master in the Grand Lodge Minutes until 1728 has a simple explanation. From 1723 to the end on 1727 the minute of each quarterly communication is headed by the presiding officers i.e. the Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master and Grand Wardens, or those who were acting for them if absent. No one else is mentioned in the minutes unless they spoke or were the subject of a matter under discussion. It was only in 1728 that the minutes began to be headed by a list of all the senior brethren present. Unlike today when having served as a Grand Officer you become a Past Grand Officer and are entitled to attend and vote in Grand Lodge the same did not apply in the early days of Grand Lodge. The introduction of the idea of Past Grand Officers was slowly introduced in the 1720s. The Minutes of the quarterly Communication held on 21 November 1724 include the following: The question being put that all who have been, or shall at anytime hereafter be Grand Masters of this Society may be present and have a Vote at all Quarterly Communications and Grand Meetings. Agreed nem. con. The same privilege was extended to those that had served or would in future serve in the office of Deputy Grand Master at the Quarterly Communication held on 28 February 1726. And, finally, at the Quarterly Communication held on 10 May 1727 the Duke of Richmond himself proposed that the same privilege be granted to those who had served as Grand 2 Circulation Paper – Not for Republication Wardens or who would do so in the future. This last factor probably explains why Rev Dr James Andersen did not appear in Grand Lodge after his time as a Grand Warden as only the actual Grand officers and the Masters of Lodges were entitled to attend and vote in Grand Lodge. I find it equally difficult to understand why the letter of the Duke of Richmond to Martin Folkes, now in the Royal Society Archives i should be dismissed as evidence because it is undated but probably dates from the 1730s. Its content is quite unequivocal. Folkes had apparently written to Richmond to borrow a portrait of the Duke to be engraved as part of a planned series of portraits of former Grand Masters. The Duke responded: As You say, our brethren will never be satisfy’d. How can fellows be such fools? Yett a positive negative I need not give, butt I have to great a reguard, you may say, to the Dukes of Montagu & Bucccluch, and to those who were my Predecessor[s], to have my print done first, butt after they have got theirs, the D: of Whartons, & the three that go before them viz: Ant Sawyer, Geo: Payne, and Dr. Dessys, for I insist upon theirs being done first; then I will consent to your lending my picture, butt positively not before those six are finish’d… In the 1723 List of Lodges in the first Grand Lodge Minute Book, Richmond is listed as Master of the Lodge at the Horn Tavern Westminster (now the Royal Somerset House and Inverness Lodge No. IV), with George Payne as his Deputy Master. He was Grand Master 1724-25 and in the 1725 List of Lodges Desaguliers and Rev James Anderson are listed as members of the Horn Tavern Lodge. Payne and Desaguliers were clearly well known to Richmond, why would he state they had been amongst his predecessors as Grand Master if they had not held that office? The comments about Stukeley and his initiation seem to me to be a red herring. In his diary Stukeley simply records that he was made a Mason on 6 January 1721. His comments on the state of London Masonry are not in his diary but come from his commonplace book at the end of an entry dated 5 June 1726 in which he gives his reasons for leaving London and moving to Grantham. He felt greatly let down by those whom he had met in the various societies he had been a member of, particularly as none of them had helped him to any positions which would have provided an income. Perhaps his comments on Freemasonry had been affected by those circumstances. Equally it is difficult to square his comment on the difficulty of getting enough brethren together to be able to make him a Mason in January 1721 with the fact that six months later it was reported that a great number of brethren attended the installation of the Duke of Montagu as Grand Master at Stationers’ Hall on 24 June 1721. By that stage in addition to the original four lodges there were two newly created lodges who, if Stukelely’s comments were true must have worked night and day to make Masons to attend the installation! 3 Circulation Paper – Not for Republication I am very familiar with the BOOK E in the records of the Lodge of Antiquity, having worked on it with the late Brother Colin Dyer, probably the greatest expert on William Preston and his ritual system.

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